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Partridge Pie

A savory pie with partridges, veal, parsley, butter, and brown stock, baked in a pie crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Partridge Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the birds

  1. Pluck, draw, and singe the partridges, then split each in half.

  2. Place a piece of butter in each half and sprinkle with salt and pepper.

Assemble and bake

  1. In a deep pie dish, layer the fillet of veal and sprinkle with chopped parsley.

  2. Arrange the partridge halves on top of the veal.

  3. Pour the brown stock over the layers and cover with a pie crust.

  4. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) until golden brown.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Parsley + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  3. Veal + parsleytop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,766 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Veal + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,049 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Partridges
Provide the main meat, which cooks through under the crust in the oven.
Fillet of veal
Adds tender meat and savoury body beneath the partridges.
Butter
Adds fat that keeps the birds moist and carries flavour as they cook.
Brown stock
Supplies moisture that steams the layers and forms the sauce in the pie.

The step that matters

Cover with the pie crust and bake until golden brown. The crust seals in steam so the meat cooks gently in its own juices. Baking at a moderate heat until the crust browns ensures the birds are cooked through without drying out.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, butter, pepper):

  1. Parsleythe original
  2. Sagefits about as well
  3. Thymefits less well
  4. Tarragonfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, butter, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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